Menu

Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition

The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) is an annual international robotics competition conducted by the United
States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Centre (TARDEC) and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).

The competition involves design and construction of an intelligent vehicle that can navigate autonomously through obstacles and travel in a defined track. The problem statement requires student teams to design and develop an autonomous unmanned vehicle. Competing with over 100 universities all over the globe, the competition entails design experience that is at the very cutting edge of engineering education.

Subsystems of the team:

Image processing and Obstacle detection.

Autonomous control using GPS.

Wireless Communication.

Chassis design and control.

The competition is classified into three phases:

1. The Auto-Nav Challenge: A fully autonomous unmanned ground robotic vehicle must negotiate around an obstacle course within prescribed time, satisfying certain criteria on speed and safety.

2. The design Challenge: Teams will be tested on the ability of the vehicles to negotiate the competition courses. In this round design innovation is of paramount significance.

3. The JAUS Challenge: This is an optional part of the competition and requires the vehicle to demonstrate compatibility with the JAUS (Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems) standard by receiving and responding to a specified list of JAUS commands from the judges.

A team consisting of 14 members, spread across various departments, christened as “Team Abhiyan”, took up the challenge of designing and building an off-terrain vehicle, capable of autonomous and manual navigation. What started as a summer project in 2012 is now ready to take flight and enter one of the most prestigious robotics competitions. IIT Madras will be represented for the first time in IGVC, 2014. Currently, five other Indian teams are participating in the competition.